After Onsen Lake House, I wanted to try something simpler, with more than a little inspiration from Apple Park's great glass ring: a single building that keeps the things I loved most—the hot spring, the sauna, a lot of glass—and drops everything else.
So I designed a house that is just one ring, with a garden and a hot spring in the middle. The full showcase, with films and renderings, is at ring-onsen.dvdsgl.xyz.
The hot spring
Everything faces the middle: a courtyard of moss, raked gravel, boulders and one sculptural maple, with a natural stone hot spring at its heart.
The sauna
The sauna's benches look across the garden through glass. A few steps out the door, and you're in the steam.
The walkway
An open stone veranda runs all the way around under the eaves and joins every room. There's just one line of glass, between the rooms and the walkway; to go anywhere, you step out beside the garden.
A ring in a meadow
The ring sits in a meadow clearing in the northern woods. The roof pitches gently outward to shed rain and snow, with solar panels on the south half and meadow grass on the north.
How it came together
I started with quick renderings at three diameters to see if the idea held up, picked the 36-meter ring, and drew a plan. Then I built it as a 3D model you can walk through in the browser, and turned views of the model into photoreal renderings and short films, so the pictures match the plan.
There are rooms for my kids, too: a little house-bed and a climbing wall for my four-year-old, and a calm nursery where the baby can watch the maple from the crib.
Take the tour at ring-onsen.dvdsgl.xyz.
